Tuesday, January 13, 2015

A Shift in Perspective - Time Is Not Money

We hear it often. But it's time we change this sad perspective we have about time and money. We have doctors and surgeons who earn an exorbitant amount of money for every hour of work done.

Corporate executives and the majority of white collar professionals are alike - we trade our time for a fixed sum of money.

Nothing is inherently wrong with that. However, the problem with the perspective that our time is equivalent to 'X amount of dollars' simply mean that we are tied to our jobs.

A surgeon who earns $700 an hour can't take a break from his/her practice because every hour 'lost' on vacation is worth $700. A lawyer who earns $500 per hour is a victim of the same fate. Needless to say, business executives are not spared from this condition.

If unchecked, we end up trading too much time for money.

We often forget to embrace the inverse.

Money is time.

Money can buy time. A bus journey which takes 10 hours can be shortened to an hour if we can afford a plane ticket. That's 9 more hours of time to spend with the family, with friends, with kids.

We have to transition into a world where we stop trading time for money, but instead build systems & mechanisms that is independent of our time. A freedom fund works in the background, increasing your net worth and your stream of income without you having to tie your time to a fixed amount of dollars.

Having a $500,000 portfolio is akin to having 500,000 soldiers busy fighting for your freedom, unconcerned with the likelihood of defeat.

Now, imagine having a million-dollar portfolio...or more.

It buys you time.

When you no longer have to trade time for money, then you can start pursuing things that matter to you.

"The graveyard is the richest place on earth, because it is here that you will find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never shared, the cures that were never discovered, all because someone was too afraid to take that first step, keep with the problem, or determined to carry out their dream." - Les Brown